Einen wiped away the blood on his lips and was about to charge when he saw Hadjar whirling around in the icy wind. Or rather, he saw ice needles raining down on his friend. It reminded him of his own ‘Boulder Storm’ Technique, one of the stances of the ‘Ape Fur’ Technique. He’d stolen it from a traveler’s trunk when he’d been a child.
He’d used to think that the attacks of his staff-spear must be as straight and sharp as rocks sharpened by the ceaseless onslaught of the waves. The longer they resisted the water, the sharper they became. But now, looking at his friend’s efforts, he understood that he’d been wrong all along.
Einen wasn’t a rock. He wasn’t holding a boulder. He fought with his spear, and the spear fought with him. There was no point in separating the two. After all, the spear wasn’t able to strike without Einen and Einen.... For him, the spear was only a symbol. After all, everything around them, even the ice, could become the ‘Boulder Storm’, because everything in this world was fighting against and for something. No one lived purely for pleasure. Even a bird soaring through the sky did so only to find food.
Hadjar fought off the last of the ice spears and wiped the sweat from his forehead, feeling a powerful surge of energy. At first, he thought Ragar was preparing another attack, but the Spirit Knight was still in a state of shock and wasn’t capable of such a thing just yet.
The rush of energy wasn’t coming from the northerner, but from Einen.
“Just in time, baldy!” Hadjar shouted, smiling as he applauded his friend’s breakthrough. He’d just become a Wielder of the Spear.
Chapter 409
Two beams shot out of Einen’s eyes. Forming two spearheads, they pierced the floor in front of him. Einen kicked the base of his spear-staff, moving it behind him, and assumed an open stance.
With a slight nod, he acknowledged Hadjar’s shout. By the Great Turtle, his friend was smarter than a sage sometimes, but dumber than a dung beetle at other times. What was the point of telling their foe that they’d become stronger? Fortunately, Ragar still wasn’t able to properly react to the world around him.
Einen remained where he was, stuck in a state of near enlightenment. For a brief moment, he could see the gleam of the Spear Spirit in everything around him: in the growing ice needles, in the snowflakes, even in the hairs on his arm.
Was the ‘Boulder Storm’ stance really that simple? Were its strikes fast and hard, like rocks sharpened by the sea? Einen could now see further and deeper.
Hadjar had watched his friend use the ‘Boulder Storm’ a hundred times before, turning his spear into a storm of deadly, precise thrusts. Now, however, when the islander cried out:
“Boulder Storm!”
Something entirely different happened.
If his attack had looked like boulders jutting from the sea before, it was now... waves. Sharp and fast, they rose up like a deadly tide, then fell on Ragar from the most unpredictable directions. They were moving unpredictably, rolling around, doing loops and complex zigzags. They were much faster than boulders, much smaller and thinner, but contained the same power and sharp focus.
By the Evening Stars, Hadjar wasn’t sure that the ‘Calm Wind’ stance could save him from mortal wounds if Einen directed this attack against him now, despite the fact that the northerner’s ‘Winter’ Technique had reduced their speed and power by almost a third.
Ragar roared like a wounded beast. He raised his hands above him. The snow wolf spirit growled behind him. Copies of his hands appeared around Ragar. They parried and smashed the spears to bits. Einen’s thrusts, each of which carried the Spear Spirit, were giving even the Spirit Knight trouble
“Shakh!” Hadjar shouted.
The desert dweller nodded. Crouching, he plunged his two daggers into the sand.
“Sand Slaughter!”
Hadjar hadn’t seen this Technique before. It was obviously difficult for Shakh to use. Taking most of his energy, it turned the young man’s hands to sand. Together with the daggers, they sank into the ground, and a moment later, the layer of ice beneath Ragar’s feet exploded.
Two sand tornadoes shot out from beneath the ground. Whirling, they gradually solidified until they formed replicas of Shakh’s arms holding the daggers. They were ten feet long and dense, and they delivered devastating blows to the target. The floor trembled. The clash of sand attacks and ice defenses echoed around the room. Full of power and energy, they punched holes that were two feet deep in the walls. Any echoes of this fight could kill not only a mortal, but even a practitioner at the Formation stage as well.
“Hadjar, together!” Einen raised his spear behind him once again.
The thousand attacks that comprised his new ‘Boulder Storm’ were reinforced by Hadjar’s ‘Strong Wind’ and ‘Spring Wind’. A thousand penetrating spear thrusts were joined by a wave of wind that held writhing dragons within it, and their bodies had glittering blades inside them — copies of Mountain Wind.
The combined attack of the two warriors who had become Wielders managed to break through Ragar’s defenses. His ice hands cracked. A deluge of spears pierced through them, and then the full force of a tsunami of cutting wind crashed right into the northerner’s chest.
However, this wasn’t enough to send the Knight flying. He wasn’t even dragged across the floor. Ragar only took a few steps back, and a few drops of blood leaked out of his mouth.
The Techniques only managed to put a few dents in his armor, tear off some of the rings in his chain mail, and slightly injure the northerner’s torso. Judging by the blood coming from his mouth, they’d also caused some minor internal injuries.
Einen, Shakh, and Hadjar stood side by side again. Panting, covered in wounds, they looked at the Spirit Knight standing before them. Ragar’s gaze became more focused. His soul wounds were healing, and energy was no longer seeping out of him. The wolf spirit behind the Knight grew more distinct, stronger and brighter. The rainbow scales fell away from Einen’s skin, and the cloak of black mist disappeared from Hadjar’s shoulders.
“Any ideas?”
Hadjar looked at his comrades, but they said nothing.
“What about artifacts?” Shakh asked.
Shakh was the only one who’d continued to attack the Spirit Knight. His sand dogs were leaping at Ragar. Their dagger-tongues kept trying to stab his eyes, and their steel fangs and claws kept digging into his flesh. Only this relentless harassment was keeping Ragar from fully recovering.
“Ramukhan has all of them,” Einen said calmly.
“That sorcerer over there?” Shakh pointed at the unconscious Ramukhan.
The three of them looked at each other, and Einen swung his spear to bring over the leather bag that contained all the amulets Paris had given them. Among the various trinkets designed to deactivate various formations and spells, they found a throwing dagger.
“Evening Stars!” Hadjar and Shakh sighed.
“Great Turtle!” Einen added emphatically.
He pulled the dagger out of the bag, and then, in a most uncharacteristic manner, threw it away carelessly.
“There’s nothing useful in here,” Einen stated bluntly.
The dagger — the only weapon they’d found in the bag — was used to carve into the carcasses of animals and cut out their cores.